The face-off between the management of Integrated Logistics Services Limited, INTELS, and the Nigerian Port Authority, NPA appears to have taken a twist for the worse, as the Oil and Gas Free Zones Authority, OGFZA, has threatened to revoke the company’s expatriate visas and audit its operations.
The OGFZA also accused INTELS of violating Nigerian laws in its operations. However, INTELS hit back on Monday, describing claims by the agency as “speculations and unproven allegations” and its threats an “unbridled desire to perpetrate mischief and malice against INL.”
The OGFZA is responsible for licensing, regulating, supervising, managing, controlling and co-ordinating the activities of oil and gas free zones in the country.
INTELS was a concessionaire with the Nigerian Ports Authority, NPA, to provide management services as developer under the OGFZA law, including collection of revenues on behalf of government for goods and services shipped into the country through the zone.
The concession agreement also covered collection of revenues from all operators, including multinational oil and gas companies in the country doing business within the oil and gas free zone. Recently INTELS fell out with the NPA for its alleged refusal to comply with government directive to remit all revenues collected on government’s behalf through the Treasury Single Account, TSA, at the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN.
Documents seen by PREMIUM TIMES at the weekend revealed that unremitted revenues to the federation account between January and September 2017 by the company was over N40 billion.
The INTELS co-owner, Gabrielle Volpi, has since apologised to the NPA, saying his firm was now ready to comply with the TSA directive.
The new accusations by OGFZA, however, reveal that the firm still faces a lot of hurdles.
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